
“The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.”
The Ministry of Healing, p. 470
Fragment 737.
Phædra
“The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.”
The Ministry of Healing, p. 470
“The strongest argument proves nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience.”
[H]aec vocatur scientia experimentalis, quae negligit argumenta, quoniam non certificant, quantumcunque sint fortia, nisi simul adsit experientia conclusionis. Et ideo haec docet experiri conclusiones nobiles omnium scientiarum, quae in aliis scientiis aut probantur per argumenta, aut investigantur per experientias naturales et imperfectas...
OQHI, 43 http://www.mlat.uzh.ch/MLS/text.php?tabelle=Rogerus_Baco_cps4&rumpfid=Rogerus_Baco_cps4,%20Opus%20tertium,%20%2013&level=3&corpus=4&lang=0¤t_title=Opus%20tertium&links=&inframe=1&hide_apparatus= as cited in: James J. Walsch (1911) """"Science at the Medieval Universities"""" in: Popular Science, May 1911, p. 449 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Popular_Science_Monthly_Volume_78.djvu/459
Opus Tertium, c. 1267
Context: The strongest argument proves nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences, and the goal of all speculation.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
Context: I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and in Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact — that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed — which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.
Preface to “Histoire de mon temps”, Works (1743), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 82
“Truth springs from argument amongst friends.”
Misattributed
1998
“Arguments are to be avoided, they are always vulgar and often convincing.”
Variant: I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing.